Heavy Metal Thunder Revealed

Square Enix surprised us all with one of its more recent game announcements. Although solid details on Heavy Metal Thunder were not revealed at the game's announcement a couple of weeks back, the mere idea of basing a game off a "hard rock" variety show seemed to be a bit odd for a company known for Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy.

At long last, a few solid details on the game have been revealed. Developed by Media Vision and set to be published by Square Enix in Japan later this year, Heavy Metal Thunder seems to be only loosely based on the live-action variety show that inspires it. The story is set in the year 2980. Robot fights, in which 30 centimeter robots are pitted against one another, have become a sensation throughout the world.

You play as Denki Akihabara, who starts the game at 14 years of age. Denki is a master at robot fights, and has been asked to come to the world's main event, Titan Fight. Eager to appear on television, Denki accepts the invite and heads off to the competition. He's unaware that he's about to embark on a 30 year journey.

Outside of Denki, a number of characters will play an important role in Heavy Metal Thunder. Denki's father, Hayward Akihabara, starts Denki off on his journey by sending him a robot on his birthday. This robot serves as a companion to Denki. A character called Alice teaches you, the player, how to play the game but is otherwise a mysterious man. A girl called Yoko Meguro, while not actually living in Meguro, likes strong men.

Heavy Metal Thunder makes use of the "SSTNTT" System. This stands for, in Japanese, "(S) System ga (S) susumu ni (T) tsurete (N) nazeka (T) toshi wo (T) toru." Loosely translated to English, this means that as the game progresses, Denki will grow in age. By the end of the game, he will be over 40 years old.

Aside from these first details, Square Enix is still being a bit shy about giving gameplay specifics on Heavy Metal Thunder. As far as screenshots are concerned, only shots from the game's animated movies have been released, with no gameplay to be found. The animation looks impressive, though, with character designs by the original creator of the Beck anime/manga, Harold Sakuishi.

E3 will probably house no details on Heavy Metal Thunder (this will probably be a Japan-only game), so those wanting a closer look will need to keep checking back here at IGNPS2 for future updates from Japan.